teaching and traveling in Korea

Learning Korean with Comics

January 2, 2012

from the very popular Korean comic (and movie, and musical, and tv series) The Great Catsby

At my hagwon, we teach the kids new vocabulary using storybooks. We read a storybook together, and I give them a vocabulary list of all of the words and phrases that they are probably unfamiliar with, with Korean translations.

I’ve been wanting to do something similar for studying Korean, because I’ve been getting bored just reading the dialogs in my Korean textbook. Joon Hwa talking to Hyun Joon about how he forgot to bring a present to Min Sol’s birthday party is not exactly enthralling. 정말 제미없어.

Luckily, I found this . It’s a free app that lets you read lots of Manhwa (Korean comics) in English and Korean, and it’s designed as a tool to help foreigners learn the language and experience Korean culture. It will certainly be a lot of work to understand all of the vocabulary, even with English translations, but I think it will be a lot more interesting than some of the other study methods I’ve tried so far. There are a few hundred comics on the app, and they’re all free. I will definitely stick to the simplest ones I can find.